I'm working all day long every day to become a violin virtuoso and a great composer, and I'll be honest, I need some motivation to mantain this crazy productivity.
Any book that would motivate an aspiring artist to mantain their focus on the mastering of their craft?
pic related: a guy who was disciplined enough to study and practice on both his main instrument and his compositional skills everyday for a entire lifetime
>a musician wants motivation from music, desires a book to motivate them instead
You are lost. Books can give you method and expose you to thoughts, but your motivation needs to come from music and yourself.
>You are lost. Books can give you method and expose you to thoughts, but your motivation needs to come from music and yourself.
i need no motivation to improvise, play or compose myself: I need motivation for those boring, tedious exercises that any musician has to subject himself to in order to abtain perfect mastery on their craft.
What do you think, that I should be ecstatic when I do roman numeral analysis for 5 years straight? I know why I need to do it, but some motivation could still benefit me immensely.
Just read Rite of Spring's full orchestral score and realize it's all meaningless
t. wannabe composer
*5 hours
Care to expand on this? Are you equating a lack of strict thematic recursiveness and development with meaninglessness?
Walden.
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
Read "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris. Read the whole thing, but especially enjoy the last quarter of the book. It will fill you with a desire to be a great man.
>you'll never be as good as the thousands of kids born and raised with musical genius, being tutored and intellectually cradled since youth in music
Read a lot of Goethe and other romantics desu
Just don't let it ever infect your consciousness that mediocrity and "reasonableness" are virtues
Might also read Heidegger on authenticity, and having a wofür. The muck is part of the journey.
Who cares, most people in general, child prodigies included, are unimaginative anyway.
Technique can only bring you so far.
youtu.be
Check out this little fucker. His dad rewired his brain when he was still a fetus
I was replying to
What you need is to find youtube videos of people playing what you are working on. It helps if they suck or are only a little better than you. Your competitive spirit should take care of the rest
Damn. OP, how does this make you feel?
Not even being an ass. But that would make me feel like shit
I will certainly read it.
>Just don't let it ever infect your consciousness that mediocrity and "reasonableness" are virtues
Such a view of my potential is opposite to my attitude.
>Might also read Heidegger on authenticity, and having a wofür. The muck is part of the journey.
Any guide on how to do it? I'm already well versed with the major Greek philosophers.
I believe too much in my artistic sense to feel inferior to child prodigies. Certain things cannot be taught.
I've got perfect pitch and I've finished my ear training 8 years ago. I guess it would have been cool listening to music and immediatly transcribing it when I was a child, but that's it.
I'm too advanced for that, seeing a great violinist does not really pump me up enough to practice for 3 hours with no resistance scales and arpeggios, if anything it just motivates me to do less mechanical exercises and playing more actual music, which is detrimental.
amateur hour
Astoundingly poor musicality.
If you're actually good and think you can do it, read Nietzsche and realize that being a creative genius and creating something beautiful is the highest thing a person can attain.
iktf OP. Being so familiar with your instrument that you genuinely feel inferior to no one. It just comes with playing from childhood.
How is your theory? How quickly can you play the correct notes from sheet music? Can you begin at any given note in the score without having to think about the beat or what comes next?
How is your improvisation? Personally I think that's the most important part, improvisation tells you everything about a player.
Any recordings? I'd like to hear you, even if it's in an acoustically dead room with a shitty mic and no warmup.
How advanced we talking about here? Suzuki or Nel cor piu non mi sento?
That chick from lady antebellum
"silver screen fiend" -Patton oswalt
Basically a short description of the years he spent binge-watching indie films every day under the impression that this was how to become a great director.
... Seriously? This is a model to follow?
How old are you? Could you recommend me contemporary classical music?
There's no good contemporary classical. It's all theoretical nonsense. A cacophony of intellectual depravity.
>inb4 John Williams
Don't even fucking try me.
I'm already reading some of his books (so far I've read his Gay Science and his Geneaology of Morals, I'm currently tackling Beyond Good and Evil) and obviously, being an artist (which is a lucky point of view when reading Nietzsche), I'm finding his texts extremely revealing and inspiring.
Books like these would be precious to me right now.
>How is your theory?
Excellent, although I've not finished my musical training yet. I'm still submersed by tedious, infinitely useful exercises.
>How quickly can you play the correct notes from sheet music?
My sight reading skill is on point.
>Can you begin at any given note in the score without having to think about the beat or what comes next?
Of course, but this is nothing extraordinary.
>How is your improvisation?
I spend most of my free time improvising, I'd say that it's one of my talents.
>Personally I think that's the most important part, improvisation tells you everything about a player.
I don't really agree. The more I improvise and see improvisations the more I see how limited it is as a tool. It doesn't really invalidate the single piece of music, but the catalogue of a improviser will become noticeable quickly. Even the best regarded jazz improvisers were repetitive when compared to composers who composed on pen and paper.
>Any recordings?
I have some recordings, but I'd rather not post them on Veeky Forums.
I've practiced intensively since I was 12, and started studying formally composition since I was 13. I'm 22.
I'd love to agree with you, but the reasoning behind your arguments it's just too fallacious. You probably can't write anything worth reading about contemporary music.
Also fuck you for associating Beethoven with Trump, you soulless philistine.
>Practiced since 12
That isn't what I asked faggot. What the fuck can you play? You should've gotten through all the romantic concertos at least by now.
>Trump hater
Ahh, you hate discipline and authority. No hope, best you can hope for is a faggy chamber music ensemble in a hippie town. The old virtuosos were hard ass as hell.
Beethoven would've loved Trump, but I think I already beat your ass on that over in /classical/.
>Beethoven would've loved Trump, but I think I already beat your ass on that over in /classical/.
Beethoven had the mother of all sperg fits when Napoleon declared himself emperor, I'm not sure he would have thought so highly of Trump.
Getting elected President and vowing to decentralize authority is the same as conducting an armed insurrection, subverting the Republican government and declaring yourself Emperor?
Plus Napoleon was invading all over the place before that and Beethoven apparently was quite happy about it.
Come on now faggot.
>Beethoven would've loved Trump
A billionaire that lies to become the president of the most powerful nation in the world, while not holding any respect for either his position or the istitutions around him, ending up literally selling rights and monopolies to oligarchs.
But yeah, sure, the fact that peasants have voted for Trump means that Beethoven would have totally loved him. You fucking retard.
Trump is everything Beethoven found offensive in the aristocracy he had to deal with.
... Napoleon was the original dynasty killer. You're saying Beethoven would've hated someone who didn't respect the institutions that he was ecstatic about being overthrown? Lol, you're sticking both feet in your mouth right up to the knees.
Of course complete compositions are superior, but improvisation is the basic foundation. Bach often composed this way, so the composition actually reflects his improvisational style, augmented and polished afterwards into a better whole. Which is why even his chamber music is modeled after the organ. Same with almost anybody else, the instrument typically comes first and other notions of musical structure are derived from that. The improvisational skills of course arising organically and alongside one's personality.
>Plus Napoleon was invading all over the place before that and Beethoven apparently was quite happy about it.
Beethoven believed in the enlightenment, napolean betrayed the ideal by forcing the pope to crown him as king of france rather than abolishing kingship.
The revolution was about far more than the aristocracy. In fact, attacking the monarchy was detrimental to the whole effort. In the end it didn't succeed. Just gave us our shitty crippled democracy and muh freedums.
Now Cherubini, there was a composer.
You're only thinking about the overthrowing of the establishment (which happened only at a very superficial level) while ignoring the society that is being represented by Trump himself.
You're valuing Trump as a rebel, while ignoring every single one of his traits. Do you really think that this is the man Beethoven would have admired?
Also: one of the first things Trump did was cutting the funds for Orchestras all over the country, systemtically. Doesn't sound very enlightened to me.
Yes, and thank God he did. There was no NEA when we had Toscanini, Reiner, Ormandy, on and on and on, just an embarrassment of riches, including the players, listen to the Chicago or New York symphonies at their peak, even with the lousy crackling recording, their technique was formidable, even terrifying in some cases. Nowadays I can't even name a single good conductor in the US, it's all meme personalities, the last one with any interpretive depth was Barenboim.
Same thing with composers, there was no federal funding for Dvorak, Gershwin, Stravinsky... Is there a single notable composer who needed that useless program? Is it a coincidence that modern classic is dominated by academic theoreticians up their own ass and totally unaccepted by the public at large? Did Walt Disney need government money to make Fantasia?
What an ignorant boob you are. You haven't learned that government patronage is just control with a smile. No wonder the old head of the NEA said they were happy to promote a complacent citizenry.
Beethoven lived most of his life on government patronage, and was fully aware that without it he would have had to dumb down his music.
The society you're describing came after him, and his not currently present in our times. The middle class is dead, the bourgeoisie does not care about high art, and for the art establishment to survive a sacrifice is needed. Trump did not thought that the conservation and production of high art was worth saving, treating it cinically as a economic matter. Is this the guy Beethoven wished for?
Lol, some Prince or Archduke wasn't "government patronage" as you fraudulently imply. It was nothing more than a rich boss, and if Beethoven didn't like one he could find another, just as Mozart and they all had to. It was much more akin to private employment, just within the formality of the court customs, which Beethoven didn't even have to bother with, and there was lots of patrons to choose from. With the feds it's the NEA or nothing. I have no problem with cities or states or rich people wanting to compete in sponsoring art they like, but centralized top down patronage is cancer. We already know the CIA used modern art as Cold War propaganda for fucks sakes.
You still haven't shown anything that the NEA has actually accomplished since 1965. It's all empty appeals to emotion that are short sighted as hell. Tons of new art forms and styles have popped up unassisted in that time. Meanwhile, the ones that are assisted are wallowing in despair. See the pattern, faggot?
And you really think Beethoven wasn't concerned about the economics of his music? We're talking about the first composer to make sure his music was all published and his name splashed everywhere. He took lucrative jobs and composed crowd pleasers when he had to. Economic pressure kept him grounded to the tastes and the attention of the public. His nature was far more Trump than you who probably just think Ode to Joy is some Marxist anthem can appreciate.
>Lol, some Prince or Archduke wasn't "government patronage"
It literally is. It's patronage that comes from the government itself, represented here by its Archduke, its highest authority.
>It was nothing more than a rich boss
It was patronage that granted absolute artistic freedom, regardless of the music produced. It was basically a check for Beethoven to be able to keep doing art without having to selling himself out to the public.
>You still haven't shown anything that the NEA has actually accomplished since 1965.
Regardless of your appreciation for contemporary music, to the NEA is linked most of the performances you will be able to see in the US. This include older baroque, classical or romantic music, not only contemporary (which in fact is not prevalent at all). Do you think that we should just stop playing this music? This sounds very anti-Beethovenian.
>Tons of new art forms and styles have popped up unassisted in that time.
The NEA is there for the conservation of art too, also i'd say that the music that did not come from teh academia was lacking. We've had lots of minor accomplishments in popular music, but none of them were on par with the best classical music has to offer. Do you really want to leave the music business to the public? Haven't you seen what the fuck the public is promoting since the '40s?
>And you really think Beethoven wasn't concerned about the economics of his music?
Beethoven was certainly concerned about the relevance of art in society, the economic aspect was maybe secondary since it was still possible to earn a living as a classical composer.
This is not about what's the best system to promote art music, this is about Trump thinking that music is not worth preserving in the first place. It's not a economic problem, it's a societal one.
>Economic pressure kept him grounded to the tastes and the attention of the public.
Too bad that the music we play today is not the music he wrote to please the public.
>His nature was far more Trump than you who probably just think Ode to Joy is some Marxist anthem can appreciate.
Being a businessman means being like Trump? Is this how shallow your reasoning is?
Wttgenstein culture and value. He's always talking about doing work and how life is not meant to be spent doing fun things
Jesus Christ, you're just an ignorant retard who knows nothing about Beethoven at all. Patrons granted absolute artistic freedom? Then why bother with changing patrons as they all did if they always give "absolute freedom"? Have you even read the correspondence of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, anyone back then?!
All buzzwords, no actual examples or argument at all.
The public promoted classical like crazy in the 40s, what even are you talking about? You can barely find a movie from that period without a full orchestral score in the Strauss or Wagner mold. Heifetz, Rubinstein, Horowitz, etc were making bank. It's not until the 60s and 70s that classical came crashing down. Idiotic academic period practice fascists started insisting that they knew the right way to play classical, composers were so adamant at killing off tonality that Leonard Bernstein had to give lectures at Harvard to defend it. How did all these academic freaks suddenly acquire so much power?
See what I'm doing faggot, giving specific examples rather than using empty terms like bourgeoisie? Now fuck off back to whatever Marxist bubble you come from.
You're not worth debating. I know you'll see this as a win, but to me you're just too detatched from what actually is the historic and biographical truth of what you're talking about. It would require me to educate you on multiple topics, but honestly you're too much of a shitface for me to do this. Fuck off, remain ignorant and prejudiced.
>Too bad that his music that we play today is not the music he wrote to please the public.
Alright that totally destroyed any credibility you might've had. He didn't write his Symphonies to please the public? What is the Moonlight sonata, which became so popular he got annoyed?
Not even that guy but this is a fedora tier post. If you cant defend a position in a few sentences on Veeky Forums then you have no position at all.
>If you cant defend a position in a few sentences on Veeky Forums then you have no position at all.
Do I have to respond to any misinterpretation and lie this guy is vomiting here until he'll get tired of saying shit that is not backed by any sort of research? There is no common ground here, this guy is making it up on the spot, and he'll keep doing it for hours. There's nothing to be gained from it.
*grabs popcorn*
I'd say you're not worth debating. You literally have not provided any specific argument other than broad class stereotypes. There's no way you're over 25.
The dude is trying to compare Trump to Beethoven on the basis that they both interacted with the public. I've read many biographies of his, and I've read his conversations too, and I've read them enough to know that this guy is literally just making shit up. Do you want me to feed the troll? To seriously debate on why fucking Beethoven is not like Donald ''I'll cut funds to the arts because I want to make tax cuts for billionaires'' Trump? Do you fucking realize how much of a enlightened idealist Beethoven was?
Again, it's not worth debating trolls.
Yeah, you're bluffing, all the Beethoven scholars are hazy about his religious and political views particularly he swung from hating the monarchy to defending it to hating it again during the most turbulent time in Europe. His contradictory nature was a symptom of the richness of his life experiences, just as your simplistic generalized empty class rhetoric is also a symptom.
I'd never considered contrasting Trump and Beethoven before, but it's actually surprisingly easy to posit some probable links. Beethoven hated dynasties, so that immediately rules out Hillary and a huge segment of the left who took her family ties as evidence of competent governance. He was not against class per se, he merely didn't respect class determined by birthright rather than ability, which doesn't seem compatible with the identity politics of progressives at all. He was also very definitely a German Nationalist and despised foreign influence, and well, there's only one candidate who comes close to that position.
Really among the 3 major candidates, I can't say he would've loved Trump, but he might have arrived at him purely based on reduction. From what we know of Beethoven's tempestuous personality, it's not that far a possibility.
Anyone know if Beethoven thought anything about the Turks?
bach, schumann, wieck left behind advice either directly or scattered in memory of former students. recently published:
"Robert Schumann's Advice to Young Musicians: Revisited by Steven Isserlis"
wholesome dialogues published in book form: with stravinsky, casals, gould, schmittke
Is it just this, or is there more content?
This post is already quite indicative of your failure.
You speak of mastering your craft so you can become a great composer, which seems like a worthy goal, but is it really? Seems like what you want is glory and attention. You don't think like an artist should think, you think like a performer.
You need motivation to maintain "crazy productivity"? An artist gets his drive from a desire to create, not (only?) because they want glory, but because they want to see their creation complete. It's a whole different world view, whole different approach. The one thing they desire the most is to realize their vision, their art. When you are making something and you want to see it complete, all other things fall into place.
This combined with conscientiousness and intelligence might make you great.
This. If you can't work towards this goal, mastering the violin, with the idea in mind that you could be the only one to ever hear it, then you won't get anywhere.
Yes you stupid fuck, because it's proof that you can't just sledgehammer your way into talent. That's the point.
>talent
not such thing
a term dilletantes made up to explain the seemingly magical way an artist can be a master of their craft
Talent is really just having the judgment and self awareness to critique your own art and improve.
it serves as occasion for isserlis' own commentary
There are certainly a lot of qualities great artists possess that make them great. What I'm against is that a person can have this natural thing called "talent" that automatically makes them amazing.
As you said nobody is born great, they need to spend most of their life working hard to get there. Any natural affinity they might have had becomes insignificant at some point.
Yeah, I'm not against the notion of people having a natural inclination for a skill, but that only gets you to playing the piano in a bar, not Carnegie hall.
Even Beethoven largely copied his predecessors for decades until breaking out on his own.
>Any natural affinity they might have had becomes insignificant at some point.
I'll go with: what is "Mozart".
A bad composer who died too late rather than too soon? His jaded and weary compositions have no more potency than office memos.
Mozart's music has the melodic complexity of a train horn (actually less; train horns often are tuned to a tritone, which seem to be absent in his music) and the lyrical complexity of his non-traditional vocal works barely surpasses 3rd grade vocabulary. Not only is this music intended for ignorant audiences, it's intended to turn impressionable young people into bad composers.
You've never heard Mozarts young compositions, have you?
The guy started at like 3 so it's not like he was struck by lightning one day, he just got his awkward unimaginative phase super early. That's the benefits of having family already in the business to guide you.
Wagner
My Life
Creative genius exists in those of the transcended. Lock yourself away in solitary for months, years; you'll either develop genius or the ignorance of believing yourself to be one.
>You speak of mastering your craft so you can become a great composer, which seems like a worthy goal, but is it really?
Every musician in history that was REALLY worth anything did so, and when it comes to art music you find virtually no exception. I myself can see the obvious pros of such a choice:
a) mastering the violins opens you all the available doors of the instrument: no piece is above you, and your improvisations are not hindered by technical limitations, rather you can improvise in the same way you compose.
b) mastering composition is needed not really to learn all the "rules", it is instead needed in order to learn how to think structurally about music, in a more comprehensive and all encompassing way.
There's no reason for me not to do it.
>You need motivation to maintain "crazy productivity"? An artist gets his drive from a desire to create, not (only?) because they want glory, but because they want to see their creation complete
I guess you've NEVER ever mastered a craft, you obviously don't know what you're talking about, nor you are able to even begin to imagine all of those tedious exercises that one has to do to complete his formal education.
>The one thing they desire the most is to realize their vision, their art.
That's why mastering crafts is hard: I could be improvising in 5 minutes from now, instead I'll have to do certain unmusical arpeggios and scalea for hours. Practicing your craft IS NOT fun, employing it is fun, but that's not what I'm asking motivation for.
>This combined with conscientiousness and intelligence might make you great.
Jesus Christ, just shut up.
Teach kids and adults and you will eventually eventually learn that some of them just don't get it: there is a thing called talent, but is something that hides itself behind the scenes: you don't really see it in the music itself, rather in how the musician practices and learn.
He did it for 7 years, only in his symphonies (his first sonata was already considered too daring by Haydn) then he broke free. Also I'd say that Beethoven is proof of the fact that hard work and being a child prodigy is not enough, and that even after all that work there is such a thing called talent.
Mozart is a bad example, considering how hard he practiced.
Good examples are Schubert, Schumann, Wagner and Berlioz. They all started composing late in their life (respectively 15yo, 21yo, 18yo and 19yo) and were all naturals. Schumann, for example, 2 years into his formal training was already composing faster than Mozart ever did.
If you need a book to "motivate" you you're fucked.
If you want to be great 90% of it is just slaving away.
>nor you are able to even begin to imagine all of those tedious exercises that one has to do to complete his formal education.
>Practicing your craft IS NOT fun
> I'm asking motivation for.
Looks like I was right about your motivation being rather a prideful desire for fame and glory rather than a desire to create.
You can't ask for motivation, there just are certain people that work every hour they can and they get shit done and rise to the top positions in their field. Like mentioned ITT Trump, extremely conscientious people who can't just do nothing, and don't know anything but work.
>Looks like I was right about your motivation being rather a prideful desire for fame and glory rather than a desire to create.
I need to do these exercises in order to be more free in my creative process, these 2 aspects of musicianship are closely linked.
>You can't ask for motivation
I've already mentioned books that motivated me enough to not resist these exercises, I wanted other similar literature, that's it.
>Like mentioned ITT Trump, extremely conscientious people who can't just do nothing, and don't know anything but work.
God, you're clueless. Let me guess, you've got no skill right?
Whatever craft you will pick, wether it's music, literature, painting, whatever, will include in its necessary formative process extremely tedious and frustrating sections that you simply will have to force yourself through. There is nothing creative in it, those are propedeutic exercises aimed at a higher understanding of what you're doing. Also when you do these exercises you'll have to refrain yourself from actually pursuing any creative activity, since that's a distraction in this particular context. If you're learning to draw horses you can't just quit it and start drawing stuff that you already know how to draw. That is slowing your learning process.
The same applies to music. When I practice scales I'm not dreaming of sitting on my couch and watching TV, rather I'm dreaming of stopping practicing scales and start improvising and transcribing music, which is NOT what I should do. This is why I was asking for motivating books: they don't necessarly have to be related to art, rather they should be about self-discpiline and self-overcoming, books that reinforce in you the idea that you should just shut your desires off as long as you practice, dedicating to it the upmost concentration. This can apply to any craft, wether it is artistic or not.
>You must industriously practice scales and other finger exercises. There are people, however, who think they may attain to everything in doing this; until a ripe age they daily practice mechanical exercises for many hours. That is as reasonable as trying to pronounce a b c quicker and quicker every day. Make a better use of your time.
- Schumann
p.s. stop being such an uppity narcissist and actually try to read the posts you reply to next time
OP was btfo
I don't play music any more - but when I was most active i practiced for at least four hours every day, and all wanted to do was to practice more... I think you oughta look over your practice methodology.
yeah but you spend your childhood developing technique so you can think about interpretation later on. Apart from a few exceptions (proving the rule) and vocalists (who can't really start training properly until early 20s) almost all successful musicians started learning in childhood
You mean in classical music, right?
>I've already mentioned books that motivated me enough to not resist these exercises
Like what?
"The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand
Inb4 "hurr durr Rand"
This one is about talent and genius so it is fitting for his purpose
>Rand
>talent
>genius